1
Cybercrime: main points of each reading
Lecture 1 (Concepts of cybercrime and practical issues)
David S. Wall, Crime, Security and Information Communication Technologies: The Changing
Cybersecurity Threat Landscape and Its Implications for Regulation and Policing (2017)
This chapter explores…
- the changing cybersecurity threat landscape and its implications for regulation and policing
- how networked and digital technologies have affected society and crime
- how the cybersecurity threat and crime landscape have changed
- how digital technologies affect our ability to regulate them
- how we might understand cybercrime
- the technological developments that will drive future cybercrime
- the consequences of failing to respond to those changes
How network and digital technologies have transformed criminal behaviour online…
1. It has become global (glocalisation)
2. It has become informational
3. It has become distributed
How network and digital technologies have changed the cyberthreat landscape - cybercrime now
is…
- more professional
- stealthier
- more automated
- larger
- more complex
Defining cybercrime: the three generations are…
- cyber-assisted crime
- cyber-dependent crime
- hybrid cyber-enabled crime
Three cases that explore the types of crimes regularly being found in police workload today…
- Facebook and Flirting
- Snapchat and Sexting
- Data theft: the TalkTalk Hack
The emergence of a ‘culture of fear’ (= disparity between high levels of fear of the crime and low
levels of actual victimisation)
Conclusion:
- we can only seek to manage cybercrime constructively and mitigate the risks and harms that it
poses as soon as practically possible
- a major conversation is necessary between the private and public sectors
, 2
Peter Grabosky, The Evolution of Cybercrime (2014)
This article…
- reviews developments in cybercrime in the ten years to 2014
- observers that the basic substance of cybercrime offences is essentially the same as in the past
- states that cybercrimes are now executed with greater sophistication, increasingly for financial
gain and by an increased diversity of organisational structures
Trends in cybercrime:
1. Sophistication
2. Commercialisation
3. Organisation
Cybercrime structures (well-known)
- Dreamboard
- Dark Market
- Anonymous
- The Ukrainian Zeus Group
The kind of roles that a major fraud conspiracy may entail (Chabinsky):
1. Coders
2. Distributors
3. Technicians
4. Hackers
5. Fraud specialists
6. Hosts
7. Cashers
8. Money Mules
9. Tellers
10. Executives
State and State-sponsored cybercrime: example from recent years
- cyber attacks (patriotic hackers)
- attacks against the presidential office website
- a large-scale program of industrial espionage
- attacks against servers servers supporting Saudi oil facilities
- operation Olympic Games
- Snowden revelations
, 3
Typology of cybercrime groups (McGuire)
- Type I group
→ Swarms: disorganised organisations with common purpose without leadership
→ Hubs: more organised with a clear command structure
- Type II group
→ clustered hybrid: small group with speci c activities and methods
→ extended hybrid: a lot less centralised
- Type III group
→ hierarchies: traditional criminal groups
→ aggregate groups: loosely organised, temporary and without clear purpose
Recent technological developments
- mobile telephony
- wireless internet
- cloud computing
- Voice-over Internet Protocol (VOIP)
- Internet of Things (IoT)
Conclusions:
- Cybercrime today is qualifiedly different from the way it was a decade ago
- The difference is not so much in the substantive nature of the offences that are committed, but
rather in the scale and sophistication with which they are currently executed
- The industrial scale of espionage dwarfs anything from previous centuries
- Cybercrime has followed, and will continue to follow, opportunity
fi
, 4
Bert-Jaap Koops, The Internet and Its Opportunities for Cybercrime (2011)
This chapter…
- provides a concise review of literature that has investigated how and why the Internet provides
special opportunities to commit crime and what this implies for the governance of (cyber)crime
- sketches some typologies of cybercrime
- lists twelve risk factors of the internet
Why the internet deserves special attention in criminology and criminal law policy - it is…
- global
- instantaneous
- intrinsically transborder
- digital
- enables automated information processing
Cybercrime definition = crime in which computer networks are the target or a substantial tool
The list of substantive crimes in the Cybercrime Convention:
1. offences against the confidentiality, integrity and availability of computer data and systems
2. computer-related offences
3. content-related offences and copyright offences
The generations of cybercrimes (Wall):
1. traditional, low-end cybercrimes
2. crimes facilitated by local or global computer networks
3. true crimes wholly mediated by technology
4. possible generation: where cybercrime occurs not only through the internet, but in completely
virtual spaces such as multi-player online role-playing games
There are 12 specific, interrelated, risk factors that facilitate cybercrime. The Internet…
1. has a global reach
2. leads to deterritorialisation
3. allows for decentralised, flexible networks
4. facilitates anonymity
5. enables distant interaction with victims
6. facilitates manipulability of data and software
7. allows for automation of criminal processes
8. can blow up the scale of a crime
9. allows for aggregation of a large number of insubstantial gains
10. facilitates an information economy
11. has structural limitations to capable guardianship
12. has rapid innovation cycles
Two basic types of hackers:
- ethical hackers
- crackers (white hat hackers)
Cybercrime: main points of each reading
Lecture 1 (Concepts of cybercrime and practical issues)
David S. Wall, Crime, Security and Information Communication Technologies: The Changing
Cybersecurity Threat Landscape and Its Implications for Regulation and Policing (2017)
This chapter explores…
- the changing cybersecurity threat landscape and its implications for regulation and policing
- how networked and digital technologies have affected society and crime
- how the cybersecurity threat and crime landscape have changed
- how digital technologies affect our ability to regulate them
- how we might understand cybercrime
- the technological developments that will drive future cybercrime
- the consequences of failing to respond to those changes
How network and digital technologies have transformed criminal behaviour online…
1. It has become global (glocalisation)
2. It has become informational
3. It has become distributed
How network and digital technologies have changed the cyberthreat landscape - cybercrime now
is…
- more professional
- stealthier
- more automated
- larger
- more complex
Defining cybercrime: the three generations are…
- cyber-assisted crime
- cyber-dependent crime
- hybrid cyber-enabled crime
Three cases that explore the types of crimes regularly being found in police workload today…
- Facebook and Flirting
- Snapchat and Sexting
- Data theft: the TalkTalk Hack
The emergence of a ‘culture of fear’ (= disparity between high levels of fear of the crime and low
levels of actual victimisation)
Conclusion:
- we can only seek to manage cybercrime constructively and mitigate the risks and harms that it
poses as soon as practically possible
- a major conversation is necessary between the private and public sectors
, 2
Peter Grabosky, The Evolution of Cybercrime (2014)
This article…
- reviews developments in cybercrime in the ten years to 2014
- observers that the basic substance of cybercrime offences is essentially the same as in the past
- states that cybercrimes are now executed with greater sophistication, increasingly for financial
gain and by an increased diversity of organisational structures
Trends in cybercrime:
1. Sophistication
2. Commercialisation
3. Organisation
Cybercrime structures (well-known)
- Dreamboard
- Dark Market
- Anonymous
- The Ukrainian Zeus Group
The kind of roles that a major fraud conspiracy may entail (Chabinsky):
1. Coders
2. Distributors
3. Technicians
4. Hackers
5. Fraud specialists
6. Hosts
7. Cashers
8. Money Mules
9. Tellers
10. Executives
State and State-sponsored cybercrime: example from recent years
- cyber attacks (patriotic hackers)
- attacks against the presidential office website
- a large-scale program of industrial espionage
- attacks against servers servers supporting Saudi oil facilities
- operation Olympic Games
- Snowden revelations
, 3
Typology of cybercrime groups (McGuire)
- Type I group
→ Swarms: disorganised organisations with common purpose without leadership
→ Hubs: more organised with a clear command structure
- Type II group
→ clustered hybrid: small group with speci c activities and methods
→ extended hybrid: a lot less centralised
- Type III group
→ hierarchies: traditional criminal groups
→ aggregate groups: loosely organised, temporary and without clear purpose
Recent technological developments
- mobile telephony
- wireless internet
- cloud computing
- Voice-over Internet Protocol (VOIP)
- Internet of Things (IoT)
Conclusions:
- Cybercrime today is qualifiedly different from the way it was a decade ago
- The difference is not so much in the substantive nature of the offences that are committed, but
rather in the scale and sophistication with which they are currently executed
- The industrial scale of espionage dwarfs anything from previous centuries
- Cybercrime has followed, and will continue to follow, opportunity
fi
, 4
Bert-Jaap Koops, The Internet and Its Opportunities for Cybercrime (2011)
This chapter…
- provides a concise review of literature that has investigated how and why the Internet provides
special opportunities to commit crime and what this implies for the governance of (cyber)crime
- sketches some typologies of cybercrime
- lists twelve risk factors of the internet
Why the internet deserves special attention in criminology and criminal law policy - it is…
- global
- instantaneous
- intrinsically transborder
- digital
- enables automated information processing
Cybercrime definition = crime in which computer networks are the target or a substantial tool
The list of substantive crimes in the Cybercrime Convention:
1. offences against the confidentiality, integrity and availability of computer data and systems
2. computer-related offences
3. content-related offences and copyright offences
The generations of cybercrimes (Wall):
1. traditional, low-end cybercrimes
2. crimes facilitated by local or global computer networks
3. true crimes wholly mediated by technology
4. possible generation: where cybercrime occurs not only through the internet, but in completely
virtual spaces such as multi-player online role-playing games
There are 12 specific, interrelated, risk factors that facilitate cybercrime. The Internet…
1. has a global reach
2. leads to deterritorialisation
3. allows for decentralised, flexible networks
4. facilitates anonymity
5. enables distant interaction with victims
6. facilitates manipulability of data and software
7. allows for automation of criminal processes
8. can blow up the scale of a crime
9. allows for aggregation of a large number of insubstantial gains
10. facilitates an information economy
11. has structural limitations to capable guardianship
12. has rapid innovation cycles
Two basic types of hackers:
- ethical hackers
- crackers (white hat hackers)
